


The Falling of Gabriel

by farfetched



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: falling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 00:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farfetched/pseuds/farfetched
Summary: After all is said and all is done, he falls.Falling has never been pretty.





	The Falling of Gabriel

**Author's Note:**

> Can't seem to tag right now on mobile so warning here: kinda body horror? Extreme damage to a body? I don't think I go too much into detail, but it is there.

Falling... hurts. 

Not at first. Initially it's a faint ache, more of a stunned numbness that overcomes anything else. 

_no child of mine would kill so easily_

Those words ring in his ears the whole way down, on and on. 

The falling itself isn't unpleasant, aside from the thoughts. 

It's the crash at the end. 

He's warned, by the very tips of his flight feathers tingling, then aching, then a sharp pain. He looks and sees them, catching fire - sparks at first then a candle flame. It's hot. They blacken and splinter into ash, and he can barely hear himself screaming. On and on - the fire spreads from the tips to the whole thing, gradually, a searing searing pain, shooting through nerves he's not meant to have. 

God gave him nerves to feel the pain of his falling. 

Angels cannot feel pain. They are above it, literally and metaphorically. He wonders if the hellfire burnt Aziraphale - but it didn't look that way. 

The wind rushes around his ears and he screams, and he screams, and he screams. His wings have burnt down to a charred skeleton, and his throat is hoarse from the screaming. The world goes dark - still falling. He is afraid of the ground. Earth? Or somewhere... lower? 

When he hits the ground, he knows. 

His skeletal wings fracture into a thousand pieces when he crashes. The pain is lightning through his new nerves, although God does not allow him the mercy of unconsciousness. He feels each break like an earthquake in his bones, the fury of the earth beneath him roiling and spearing and stabbing. The ground around him craters with the impact, splinters of his wings cascading around him, and all his fractured bones shivering within his shell. He is no longer screaming, though it is not through any will of his own. His throat closes up in the pain and he cannot breathe either, a luxury he had always done without. 

There is no unbroken part of him. This is what it is to fall; to be broken, again and again and again. Each bone lies in a millions shards. Each muscle is torn. Each scrap of skin has burnt, curled up into a frightful black. Each organ has ruptured, and his entire shell is a beacon of pain, and fire, and misery. His eyes burn, overflowing with acid tears and streaming over his broken skin. His soul has fractured, and the pain is unimaginable. 

Still, no unconsciousness. It is unrelenting, his punishment. Death would be a mercy he is forbidden. Over six thousand years he has not learnt anything of pain, never felt it. 

It is as though each minute, each second of his time in being has returned to him, eager to punish him for his misdeeds. His sins. 

_what you have done cannot be forgiven_

His broken mind does not comprehend, yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Bad mood + Good Omens + that asshole = this, I guess  
Hope you liked it? Hope it was cathartic maybe? Dunno. Gabriel was such an asshole. I kinda wanna write a redemption thing for him. Kind of.


End file.
